(Online Dating Industry Journal) A U.S. Lawyer that is currently going through a divorce is suing eHarmony for not letting him use the service his divorce is official. According to a Reuters article:
"John Claassen, a 36-year-old lawyer, said he was ready to resume dating but maintains that Pasadena, California-based agency eHarmony is violating his civil rights by not letting him use its service before his divorce is official."
Claassen wants eHarmony to overturn its rule of only allowing unmarried people to use its service and says "his lawsuit is based on a state law requiring businesses to disregard a person's marital status in the provision of services."
Kim's Comments:
Separated men and women can often feel out of place when it comes to online dating, especially when wanting to join services like eHarmony that do not allow any unmarried users to sign up for service. Of course, a lawsuit is not really the way to solve the problem, but I think that all dating services should offer some sort of solution to separated people looking to start a new romance. A solution that allows the separated person to sign up, but also alerts other members to his or her "separated" status rather than group them in with non-married singles. Going through a divorce can take several months, even after both parties have moved on and want to start seeing other people. If online dating services want to continue to tout themselves as better than the bar scene, they need to appeal to this large section of the dating sector as well.
Deal with it. What a waste of time. A lawsuit! I had the same thing happen to me and just recontacted eharmony when my divorce was final. Maybe your marriage can be reconciled and then you would end up hurting the person you started dating. If your divorce is draging on I guess you'll have to find someone the old fashion way face to face in a bar.
Posted by: Cheryl LePitre | July 18, 2006 at 01:59 PM
If I was this lawyer, hes wasting his time. The service is awful, and they dont care about customer sat.
Posted by: Roger Potter | October 06, 2006 at 10:40 AM